A Former Book Publicist Sets Up Shop in the Hudson Valley

 

A Former Book Publicist Sets Up Shop in the Hudson Valley

Before Angie Venezia opened Golden Hour Books last week, there hadn’t been an independent bookstore in the city of Newburgh, N.Y., in 25 years. Coincidentally, the specific storefront that Venezia pursued, located uphill on Broadway overlooking the Hudson River, had been a bookstore in the ’60s. “An older customer who grew up in Newburgh was passing my store and said he had this visceral memory of a bookstore that he went to as a child,” says Venezia, who found the original shop listed in an old directory of Newburgh. “I had a radar for this space. It was meant to be.” A former publicist at Penguin Random House, Venezia was guided by her career in book publishing as she considered how to stock her store. “I set out to put my taste and my point of view at the forefront,” she says of the inventory, which focuses on new and used books in literary fiction and nonfiction, with a further emphasis on women writers, cookbooks and children’s titles. The shop, whose interior was built and designed by Venezia’s husband, Reed Loar, will host author events (Lindsey Taylor, the author of the floral design book “Art in Flower,” will visit in mid-December). On Nov. 16, Golden Hour Books will also be part of what it’s billing as a “grown-up book fair” with the local businesses Newburgh Brewing Company and Billy Joe’s Ribworks. goldenhourbookstore.com.